House Pictures

It is a great feeling to have this all behind us, we have been enjoying the extra space for a couple of months now.

This is the hallway before the addition.

This is the same view now.

The next three are of the new family room.

The new master bedroom. I still need to put stuff up on the walls, they are looking pretty bare.

We use the new space all the time, Monte and I always spend our evenings out in the family room now. My favorite thing about that room is the fireplace, I can't wait to spend cold winter evenings out there, curled up with a book!

And the walls came a tumblin' down!

Yesterday was the big (and very noisy) day of taking down walls! They opened the house up into the addition, so it seems very real now.

This is as they were taking the wall down in the hallway.

The view now compared to then.

Walls had to be taken out of the office and Isabella's room in order to extend the hallway. Different walls are now up, but I don't have a picture of that.

View from the hallway looking into the new family room.

View from within

Everything seems to be coming along nicely with the house. They've been just working on the inside lately, which is good because it's been SO rainy! They've taken the last two days off, and it's been kind of nice because it's been quiet, Isabella was actually able to take a nap today. We're doing as much ourselves as we can, all of the wood trim and doors arrived today, and I will be staining and varnishing them this weekend. Thankfully my mom is coming for a couple days to help! I hate to admit it, but I'm afraid I've become a terrible mother lately. I've been stressed with all the noise, and the thoughts of how much there is to do yet, and I feel like any patience I once had has completely left me. Poor Isabella, she gets the brunt of my impatience, and I feel terrible many nights once she's tucked into bed, while I'm thinking back on the day.

Here's a couple views of the family room.

This will be our new bedroom, the doorway is going into the closet. My one regret so far is that we didn't vault the ceiling in the bedroom, now that I see how nice it looks in the family room. Hopefully there won't be any more regrets! :)

Windows and doors arrived this week, and most of the electrical is done also.

More Progress

I was excited to come home, after spending the week at my parents, and see how much progress has been made on the house. It's going fast, and should be done in about 3 weeks! It's amazing to me that in just a few short weeks it's already gone from this . . .

to this . . .

to this!

Making Progress

It seems like things are moving right along with our house. There has been SO much activity here every day! I thought I had myself prepared for the noise . . .but it's really noisy. The kids and I are heading to my parents for a while to get away from it.

They had to pour the concrete over our house, I had never heard of that. It was quite a sight!

This is what it looks like tonight!

The Day We've Been Waiting For

We were pretty excited last night, when our builder stopped by and said he would be starting this morning!

This is the last time our yard will ever look like this. It's a little sad to lose some of our yard, but the extra space in the house will be worth it. And we should still have plenty of yard space left.

This was our view for the entire day. They had to move our swing set this morning, so we can't use it. Our neighbors (who we love!!) own the empty lot between their house and ours, and they have a swing set there from when their (grown) kids were little, and we get to use it while we don't have use of our back yard. Isabella spent the ENTIRE day swinging and watching all the commotion at our place. I had the monitor out there when Jaymes was napping, otherwise he just hung out in the Ergo.

We took a quick break to go to the lake and have a picnic, but it was a short one. It was very windy and chilly by the water.

And this is what things look like at the end of day 1. I don't know how much they'll be getting done in the next week, as we have rain forecasted for the next several days.

Room to Grow

We have spent the last year or so casually looking for a different house, but didn't find anything in our price range that would fit our needs. There aren't a lot of houses for sale in our town, and the ones that are are either WAY out of our league (fancy schmancy ones on the golf course) or else in need of A LOT of fixing up. We really like our house, it's just that we are outgrowing it now that Jaymes has come along. We've put a lot of work into this house, and we absolutely love both our yard, and the neighborhood on the very edge of town, where the houses are spaced out more. We decided over the winter to look into adding on to our house, and spent many winter evenings meeting with a contractor. In the end, we came to the conclusion that it's actually cheaper for us to add on, then to buy a different house, because of what houses are going for right now. And now in the next week or two this will all become a reality for us! We are entering into a whole new territory for us. I'm excited yet nervous - excited for it all to be done and have the extra room, nervous for having to live through a remodel/ new construction with two small children, especially one who is increasingly getting in to everything and is threatening to crawl ANY moment now. I'm not quite sure what the noise level will be like in the house, but I'm pretty sure there will be lots of pounding and banging going on! :) Almost all of our back yard will also be torn up from all the big equipment needed to dig for the foundation. That is where we usually spend ALL of our time during the summer, and now it will be off limits to us. And then there's always the issue of spending money - that makes me nervous, too, because that's how I am.

I'm planning on taking the kids and staying with my parents for a week or so, and then staying with Monte's parents for a week, too. But it's inevitable that we'll be here the majority of the time when this is going on, because we won't want to leave Daddy for too long! And I don't mean to sound like I'm complaining, I really am quite excited, it's just the fear of the unknown I guess, because we've never undertaken a project of this magnitude before!

As far as what's happening is, we will be adding on a master bedroom (we'll have our first ever walk-in closet!) and a family room, we will also be residing the house with permanent siding. Also, closets and windows will have to be moved in two of our current bedrooms. I'm really excited about the family room because it will be facing the backyard with patio doors going out, so as the kids get older I can watch them from inside the house. Our living room, dining room, and kitchen all face the front yard, so I don't feel comfortable letting Isabella go outside to play by herself in the back yard, because I can't see her from inside the house! This will give us four bedrooms, so Jaymes will finally be able to move out of our room. :) He'll move into Isabella's current room, and she'll move into our current room. And, for now, we'll keep one as the guest room/ office. We'll be doing everything we can to try and save some money along the way, so Monte and his brother-in-law will be doing some of the work (like putting up all the siding, and installing carpet). Anyway, you can join us on our little "journey" if you'd like as I plan to blog about the construction as we go, and post before and after pictures.

This is currently where our house "ends". This hallway will continue a little ways then open up into the new addition.